Once upon a time, I wrote New Year’s resolutions. I wrote so many of them that by the following year, when I bumped into the list that had been hiding amongst the pages of a book for over 300 days, I got so depressed, seeing I had only managed to execute maybe only five of 50 of my resolutions. My New Year’s resolution since then? No resolutions!

I simply do not want to fill my life with goals until I am emotionally constipated and physically exhausted. Instead of making resolutions at New Year, I now spend a day or two playing with scissors, a glue stick and magazine cutouts creating my vision board.

I do get carried away, very often ending up with two of them! There is so much that inspires me in my professional life that it always leaves very little space for my private one (well, this is my real life story anyway!). I used to dedicate 10-percent of the lower right corner to health, wellbeing, spirituality, green juice, my dream home and that dream guy, but last year I was more generous with myself and so those ‘things’ I just mentioned got a whole board to themselves. Somehow the dream guy still only got 10-percent of the lower right hand corner. Oh my, oh my, what does that mean? I hear ya… I’ll give ‘him’ more space this year.

Vision boards are great. Not only are they are quite decorative and bring out the artist in you, but they also they really do let you dream big and wide. And as they say, a picture tells more than a thousands words. Vision boards are put up on your wall where you can see them everyday, study them, admire them, dream with them and get inspired day after day with endless possibilities. “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’,” said Audrey Hepburn.

My home is also filled with positive affirmation cards. I have plenty of them and cannot put them all out at once so every New Year I like to pick up a few new ones that resonate with me and what I feel will be needed to remind me on a daily basis to pursue my dreams.

So often things would happen to me and I would look at my vision boards and gasp, ‘Crap, this just happened!’ Things can be small or big, more or less significant, but many do happen as your vision is clear, you know what you want and you project it out there to the Universe on a daily basis. It is like placing an order in a restaurant! How will the chef know what would you like to eat if you do not decide what you want and order it?

The best thing is seeing the things you really wanted to happen at some point actually not happening at all and then you sigh a big sigh of relief! ‘Thank you Universe for not giving me what I asked for! What was I thinking?’

I also like to reflect on the year gone by and see what I have learned from it. Instead of just pushing forward we need to stop and reflect on the things we have learned, the cosmic messages we have downloaded, process what just happened, analyse it, learn from it, accept it, take a note and move on.

Life can be a real challenge and we need tools to help us along the way and keep us going. For me, these tools are my vision boards, my affirmation cards and my reminder to have a massage – my favourite pastime at least twice a month! It doesn’t always happen but it keeps reminding me that I must take that ‘me time’ and all those dreams I have glued onto my boards will come at the right time. Trust and believe and the Universe will conspire to give you just what you need.